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Vol. I. rHILADELPlIIA, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1892. . No. 7. 



Abraham Lincoln. 



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The Immortal President Discussed as "the Greatest of American Work- 
ingmen"— His Greatness Gained in the Academy of Actual Labor — In 
Working With His Own Hands He "Learned the Freemasonry of 
Human Feeling." — As President He Struck Down the Conspiracy 
Against American Labor as Carried on Under Guise of Free=Trade and 
Slavery by the Democratic Party — How the Republican Party Has 
Made American Labor the Best Paid in the World— Now It Will Fos- 
ter and Encourage Profit=Sharing, Co=Operation, and Industrial Capi- 
talization — Thus Helping to Gain Larger Profits and New Dignities to 
all American Labor — "Take the Post=Office Out of National Politics and 
Put It in Neighborhood Politics" — Lincoln the Great Workingman. 




r. J. S. Clarkson, Chairman of the Republican National Conimittep, 
was invited to address the RepubUcan State I^eague of Ohio, at 
Columbas, on the 12th inst., the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. 
Mr. Clarkson had prepared sometliing in which he dealt mth 
Mr. Lincoln from a new standpoint, but was prevented by 
illness from going to the banquet. Below is what he intended to 
say on the question of Lincoln as a workingman : 

It has always seemed to me that the State of Ohio is the most 
favorable ground in America for liberal speech. It Ls the typical American State. It is 
of the North, and yet near the South. It is neither East nor West. The representative 
American, to-day nearest the typical American of the future, is the citizen of Ohio. 
Here, on this mifldle ground, where the fom- great subdivisions of the Rei)ublic meet, 
is good counsel ground for American thought and discussion. Here is neither Eastern 
narrowness nor Western prejudice. Here is best represented in feeUng the future re- 
lations between the North and the South. In schools, in business achievements, in 
.social life, in all the larger tokens of civilization, in loyalty to the Union, in liberality 
to all people, in courage of opinion, and coui-age of action, the State of Ohio and its 
people are always willing to hear any good cause, and to give intelligent judgment 
upon any proposition for the good of the Republic, 

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A flan of the People. 

Speaking to the gallant Republicans of Ohio on the birthday of Abraham Lincohi, 
I would not talk of liini as the great ruler whpse serene and lofty fame has become a 
cherished possession of that wider world which now runs wherever human Uberty is 
knowTi. Instead, I would speak of him as the greatest of American workmgmen. I 
would tiu-n to the seamy side of his life, to his boyhood, when working with his ovm 
hands, he learned in poverty that free-m;isonry of human feeling which is never 
other\\Tse acquired. I would turn to the days when, face to face with want and 
hardslaip, his own heart touched the cross of human suffering, never after to lose its 
sympathy with sorrow nor to cease its opposition to wrong. Lincoln, when he often 
tired of the advice of Cabinet and Congress and of the counsel of all the famous and 
the wise, always sought refuge and instruction in the sympathy and friendship of those 
whom he called "the plain people. " He had the larger vision, and was lifted up 
above mere statesmanship or experienced human knowledge. He could tm-n from 
power, from wealth, from the precedents of time and the axioms of the ages in 
(Government, and go among the plain people, and find there the wisdom to save 
the Republic, to free a race from slavery, and to give new meanmg to human liberty. 

The Party of the People. 

I^eaders of public thought and students of publit^ aifalrs in this ne^v [generation, 
which does not kno\v Abraham lincoln as the generation of the war time knew him, 
may find illumination for many dark places now in going nearer to the plain people. 
All the jiower the Republican |>arty has ever gained, all the renown it has ever won 
in service to the Republic and the cause of universal freedom, it sought and found in 
the wisdom of the millions who, like Lincoln, learned the sufficient knowledge through 
their o\\'n suffering and trials. It is well enough to recall on this birthday of the great 
commoner, of this greatest of American workingmen, that in his Americanism he 
knew nothing of aristocracy, and in his RepubUcanism nothing but hmiian sympathy. 
The Reiiublican party was born without an aristocracy. The Republican party is ple- 
beian, not patrician. The Rei>ul3lican party to-day Is typified In the mechanic or the' 
farmer, as the I\ei)ublican jiarty during the war was the Union soldier. The average 
American of this time, as then, is not the jirofessional man, nor the banker, nor the 
rich man. If an artist were commissioned to make a statue of the typical American 
in this century he would make it a Rei)ublican workingman. Therefore the Repub- 
lican party is a party of the i)eoi)le. It is the people. Wherever it has kept near 
its own heart, which has always been the heart of labor, it has been invincible. When 
it has strayed from it it has lost. 

Democratic Conspiracy against Labor. 

What Is the lesson of Lincoln's fife and the suggestion of Lincoln's birtlnlay? 
It is to take the Republican party nearer than ever to the people. I say frankly that 
the greatest work and most solemn duty resting upon the Republican party is first 
an ;^. always to address itself to meeting any danger menacing or any real grievance 
existing among the people, the laborers of the farm and the shop. The greatness of 
IJncoln'M cariu-r was in resisting and dofeuting tlie culmination of tl.ie first great con- 

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spiracy against American labor, for free-trade in the United States has never been 
anything else but a plot agamst the American workingman. Slavery as it existed in 
this Republic was not simply a conspu'acy agamst the negro because he was black ;• it 
it was because he was a workingman. The South wanted slavery, not to enslave the 
negro, but to get his labor as nearly for nothing as possible, and to j^rotect the ruling 
wliite class from being compelled to labor themselves. The struggle in this country 
has always been, in the South for cheap labor, in the North for free and well-paid 
labor. McDuffie, of South Carolina, the greatest of all American free-traders, past 
or present, who wielded the power of his party in Congress from 1822 to 1853, in 
assailing protection always did so on the bold public ground of protesting against 
' ' compelling the South ■with slave labor costing twenty-five cents a day to com- 
pete with free labor in the North at a dollar a day." He and all Southern white 
leaders then boldly said that labor was the work of a slave alone, and for fifty years 
the Democratic party in tfce United States attempted to make all labor either slave 
labor or else paid in slave's wages. McDuffie in speeches in Congress always said 
that Northern white labor would ui the end be coerced to the same wages and the 
same condition as the Southern black slaves. For fifty years this was the purpose of 
the Democratic party ; and McDuffie in his message as Governor of South Carolina in 
1835 declared the labor element, " bleached or unbleached, the dangerous element in 
the body politic." The result of fifty years of Democratic effort for free-trade was the 
appeal of the South to rebellion — the last resort to retam slave labor. President 
Lincoln, who had watched the development of the Southern purpose, clearly under- 
stood it all, and in his inaugural message of 1861 characterized " the rebellion as the 
result of an effort to place capital above labor in the structure of the government." 
The North, true to human liberty and to free labor, raUied to his defense, and the 
first conspu'acy against the workingmen of America failed signally before the eyes of 
the world, stricken down by the faithful hand of a workingman occupying the high- 
est office in the land. 

Republican Protection to Labor and Capital. 

Not only this. Lincoln and the RepubHcan party in, their humanity stooped 
down and took the three miUions of slaves held by the South and in the cruelty of 
free-trade, and made them citizens and free laborers, adding their enormous labor to 
the competition of its owti free labor, which, so far from opposing the action, 
demanded and welcomed it. The capital of the North, which had opposed the free- 
trade conspiracy against labor, also supported Lincoln, and has, in the main, ever 
since, very largely stood in its defence. For the American policy of protection Ls, 
when it is all told, maintained for the purpose of perpetuating the difference between 
the wages of Em'ope and America. Measure it as you may, there is the Avhole fact. 
Protection is no longer for capital. It is wholly for labor. 

Thus, the Republican party, while protecting labor, also protected and promoted 
cacital in the interest of labor and the interest of the country. The party early 
pi'vvv'ed its basiness thrift, as well as its humanity. Early in its life, beginning in '61 , 
it displayed such supreme basiness abihty, and gave to the American people such 
rule and legislation as enabled this generation of Americans to make and amass more 

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money than any people in the world at any time in history have ever bet n abK' to 
fiain. Fortunes were never made so rai)idly. The condition of labor was never 
intproved so qiiiekly. It is estimated now by reliable and skUled authorities that in 
he thirty-two years since 1860 thiity-ei^ht billions in value has been added to the 
wealth of the United States under Kej)ublican jjuhcies. The South alone, which was 
destroyed at the end of the war as completely as men and armies can destroy a 
country, has itself gained and now possesses more wealth than the entire nation 
possessed at the beginning of the war. 

Give Capital Its Just Due. 

It is to be said, too, that the mass of American capital in this last thirty years nas 
been sympathetic and patriotic. Itfurnished the five billions of dollars nece.s.sary to 
subdue the Democratic rebelUon and save the Union. It furnished the money to 
develop the country. When two hundred million dollars were needed to run one 
carload of commerce from San Francisco to New York, largely through a wild antl 
unsett'ed country, capital cheerfully furnished it. When thousands of milhons more 
were required to make the commerce between the North and the South, East and 
West, quick and certain and cheap, capital quickly furnished that. Wherever rail- 
i-oads thus bmlt made their way, the land was touched into a value in gold, the 
homesteader's farm and all. This increment of wealth amounted to staggering totais, 
and it was divided among the millions of the famis and the to\vns. The sanu- energy 
and patriotic ftuth shown by capital in these days were also shown in the estabUsh- 
ment of thousands of new factories and enterprises for the larger employmer.t of 
labor, for creating insurance, banking, telegrai>li, and all sorts of corporations, until 
thousands of millions of more money were put into human activities, labor sharing in 
it all. The capital and the labor of no country have ever fostered and developed a land 
as patriotically and as rapidly as American labor and American capital have developed 
this country in the past generation 

Grand Work of the Republican Party. 

Thas, in this short space of time, a mere breath in the life of a nation, the poli- 
cies and the courage of the Republican party first saved American labor from the 
conspiracy of free-trade to degrade it to slave labor, and next it set up in the new 
hemisphere a republic of workingmen the best-paid in the world. But it can not an<l 
will not stop with this, nor will the patriotism of American capital remain satisfied 
merely with its past. For as much as the Republican i)arty and American capitr.l 
have done for labor, they A\ill yet do far more. We ai-e near the time when tl;e 
American Republic, still most faithful of all governments to labor, will rapidly t-ntc r 
ujjon the revised conditions in the line of co-operation, profit-sharing, and industrial 
capitalization, which shall give to labor still larger rewards. Already the United 
States has a larger number of profit-sharing establishments than either France or 
England, and they ^\^ll multiply rapidly. The American Republic, the land of 
protection and defense of labor, must lead in these great departures. Capitid itself is 
beginning to see that it is doing well enough when it makes six or eight or ten \>vr 
i-ent., and then above that divides the additional profit with lal>(>r. It is not e)nly 

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American labor's logical right and good fortune under our peculiar system, Init 
every experiment which has been tried has sho\m that it profits capital as much as 
■ labor. 

It gives to the laborer the dignity of partnersh.ip. It makes his work still more a 
pleasure and a matter of pride. It puts all work, even in the largest establishment, 
under the eye and hand of a partner. It gives higher reputation, wider market, and 
a velvet of additional profit to goods and wares so made. The RepubUcan party is 
sure to encourage capital to take its way to kindly results, and no one can now 
describe the immeasiu-able benefits which in this new order will result to the good of 
labor and the good of the countjy. 

Solution of the Labor Problem. 

P"or my part, I believe that profit-sharing is the coming solution of the labor 
problem and of the confiicts between labor and capital. The railways in the land 
may yet find then- i-efuge in this, from their present doubtful existence under the 
experiment of being private property under public control. They can look to that, 
or finally to government ownership, opeiated under an enlisted service, as well as 
government control. The immense private enterprises of cities, the large dry goods 
houses, as well as factories, are not only ready to follow, but some are ah-eady leaduig 
the way. The great hoases of Claflin, and of Thurber, Whyland & Co., of Kew York, 
the gi'eat Pillsbm-y INIiUs, of Minnesota, and other large American establishments, 
have all found in trying this new de})arture that it is better for themselves as well as 
better for lal)or. ^^'hile capital is trying pi-ofit-sharing, let labor and capital together 
try co-operation. The Republican party can devise the methods and clear the way, 
in the large 'wisdom and in the devotion to labor and the interest of the country that 
it has always shown. I do not doubt that in a few years we shall see nearly aU the 
arger estalilishments in America, especially those established and made prosperous 
under the Republican jiolicy of protection, adopting the ])lan of profit-sharing and 
co-operation, thus lifting up American labor still more, to the admh'ation and envy of 
the world. 

A Word of Warning. 

By all those tokens of the past, by all those promises of the future, there are mil- 
lions of workingmen in -the Democratic party, who belong in tlie Rei)ublican line. As 
slavery was maintained by the South to insure cheap labor, so are the millioiLs of black 
men in the South menaced and degraded to-day for the same purjiose. The plot of 
the Southern States against the negro race is the same old Democratic plot against 
free labor. The greatest menace to the well-paid labor of the North to-day is the 
settled attempt of the South to degrade black labor into a peasantry and into wages 
of twenty-five or fifty cents a day. No intelligent laboring man, North or South, 
should be blmd to these facts. The Democratic party has always adulated capital 
and been domineered by wealth. It protected property when it was mvested in 
human beings as slaves. The changes among rich men in New p]ngland now is money 
going back to the Democratic party. Harvard College goes back to its old love of 
the money class. All arrogance of wealth is generally disjilayed against the Repub- 
lican party. INIugwumpery itself is simply one of the eruptions of congested wealth 

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